James Gallagher has suffered a massive blow in his quest to challenge for a bantamweight title after he tapped out in the third round of his contest against Patchy Mix last night.
To make matters worse, he did so in his home country of Ireland.
Gallagher has been known to have so much arrogance that he almost comes across as a man who is a “wannabe Conor McGregor,” so you would imagine that the biggest damage to his ego would be a loss in front of his home crowd, which is exactly what happened as Patchy Mix managed to perform a guillotine choke early in the third round to silence the frenetic home crowd.
Gallagher shares some of the same attributes as McGregor, with scarily similar tattoos and pre-fight antics, that it makes you wonder if the McGregor team might want to place a restraining order on the next up-and-coming talent from across the Irish Sea.
The main controversy started at the weigh-in, where Mix weighed in 2lbs overweight. The punishment for the American was a percentage of his purse being handed over to Gallagher.
The 25-year-old managed to comment on the American’s misdemeanour after, stating: “He’s already beat. His mind is weak.”
He was soon to regret those words as he quickly found out how formidable his opponent was after getting a hand under the neck early in the round. Gallagher managed to recover to end the first round strong and started the second on the front foot as the Strabanimal was delivering intricate combinations, nearly getting a strong hold around the neck, before Mix recovered to finish on top in the second.
The third and final round was a disaster for the man ranked sixth in the world as Mix managed to get the Irishman into a guillotine choke within seconds of the third round.
The silence from the crowd was unthinkable considering the hype around the prospect of a famed home victory for one of Ireland’s young talents in the combat sporting world, but as Gallagher sat on the canvas legs crossed, while his victorious opponent left the cage, he will have to regroup with his new coaching team and bounce back if he ever wants to be an MMA champion.
This might be the humbling experience which could turn a good fighter into a great one?